This week I read, "Need Buy-In? Invite the Lions In," by John Kotter in the Harvard Business Review Blog Network. There is an accompanying video as well. In these materials, Kotter talks about the value of bringing the "naysayers and obfuscators" to your presentation.
This reminded me of some of the issues we are experiencing in our newly-established Technology Coordination Meeting in our department. We have had a few experiences when a technical group brings forward a new technology or upgrade, only to have many objections raised by the support staff, who worry about the impact on customers. The technical group comes in, thinking they are ready to go, only to find out that there are many objections to their roll-out plans as well as requests for further testing and documentation. The support staff are happy to have a say in the process, which they might not have had before, but the technical staff feel criticized and delayed. As one technical person said to me, "It isn't a good idea to replace one unhappy group of people with another."
As a result, we have made several changes to our process. The first change is to ask the technical staff to come forward earlier in the process, so that the concerns can be addressed during the development phase, rather than at the end. The second change was suggested by one of our support staff, and it seems to be working great. We have invited customers to join our Beta Bulldogs group. We give them access to the new service early, ask them to help us test, and fold their advice and experiences into the further development of the solution. This new process seems to be working just great so far.
Despite the growing pains with our Technology Coordination Meetings, I think we are already seeing the value of this new process. Hearing concerns before we roll out new services, and involving the support staff in solving the problems, simply strengthens the final product. And that is good for all of us. Keep those lions coming.
No comments:
Post a Comment